


From Time to Eternity

by IAmANonnieMouse



Series: IGRPDC 2021 [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon, original character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 21:13:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30145662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmANonnieMouse/pseuds/IAmANonnieMouse
Summary: Grief, Yusuf knows, can be a dangerous thing.
Relationships: Yusuf/Original Female Character
Series: IGRPDC 2021 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2206482
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3
Collections: Inception Gen/Rare Pair Drabble Competition





	From Time to Eternity

**Author's Note:**

> IGRPDC Week 2  
> Prompt: "get over it"  
> Genre: pre-canon  
> Word Count: between 300 and 350 words, inclusive

He locks up the PASIV first, his hands gentle despite the anger-pain-grief burning in his veins. Then, he trashes the room.

He throws glassware, rips papers, screams loud as he can scream.

It doesn’t bring her back.

 _I’m dead,_ he can hear her saying. _Get over it. Don’t linger in the past. Tell me where you’re going next._

He tapes his papers back together and gets to work.

Memories drown him: waking slowly, his chair overturned, her body the weight that tipped him—

He buries himself in his chemistry. But he leaves the PASIV in lockup.

The next time he’s called for a job, he says, “I’ll make the compounds, but I won’t go into the field. Agreed?”

The extractor pauses. “I was sorry to hear about her death. Only a coward would kill her while she was under.”

“Those are my terms,” he chokes out. “Agreed?”

The extractor agrees.

He can’t test his compounds anymore, too afraid of the demons waiting for him underneath, so he invites others to try them instead. Soon, his shop’s overflowing with people eager to offer themselves as lab rats to chase their own ghosts.

They dream for hours a day, sprawling on cots in his basement.

He doesn’t watch them dream. He can’t. Their stillness is too close to how she looked when he woke, chair overturned—

He hires a minder and fixates on his compounds.

_Where are you going next?_

He’s lingering in the past, like she never wanted. So he unlocks his PASIV.

She’s waiting for him in her childhood home, idly swinging her legs. When she smiles, it rips through him like a bullet. 

“I’m sorry,” he gasps, falling to his knees. “It was my fault.”

“No, my love. It was my time.” She strokes his hair gently. “Now, tell me where you’ve gone since I left.”

He talks until he’s hoarse, his tear-stained face resting in her lap. When he wakes up in his empty bed, he can still feel her fingers tangled in his hair. 

“Alright, my love,” he whispers. “Where should we go next?”


End file.
